I remember when I was first learning human anatomy, during a time that my husband and I were still using OCP, and I had no clue that a woman's body is so vocal about its hormonal milieu. When we were learning about the hormonal changes that occur with a woman's menstrual cycle and the physical changes that accompany it, I started wondering why women had to be so dependent on artificial contraception in order to plan their pregnancies.

Now, after my husband and I have happily started using NFP, and been successful at it, I wonder why the medical community is so eager to push contraception upon women, instead of teaching a method that is quite easy, not to mention completely free. And I have come to the conclusion that the medical establishment wants women to need birth control, not only because the medical community has shown itself to me to be full of elitists who like to decide which populations should be reproducing, but also because those same elitists don't want women learning a method that is based on a moral and faith-based lifestyle.

When I was completing my obstetrics rotation, my classmates and I had a lecture on different methods of predicting fertility and assisting conception. After hearing about all the different methods for measuring fertility, all of which involved some cost, I asked why we couldn't just have a woman take her temperature every morning to see if she was ovulating. The physician giving the lecture looked at me as if I were an alien. She stated that no one would do such a thing. After I replied that I took my temperature every morning quite easily, she launched into a lecture about how I was more intelligent than the average individual, and so I was more capable of keeping track of my own fertility. What I brought away from her screed was that the average person is so stupid that they can't be trusted with keeping track of their own fertility. Apparently taking one's temperature and taking note of other signs of fertility is much more difficult than spending money on kit to predict ovulation, remembering to take a pill every day, refilling the prescription and driving to the pharmacy to get it, or making a trip to the doctor every 3 months for a shot of depo-provera. And with all the time liberal doctors spend whining about how the poor don't have access to medical care, they still want these populations paying money that doesn't need to be paid for artificial contraception. The mind boggles.

I'm pretty sure that Couple to Couple League does the Creighton method. The Sympto-Thermal method, as discussed in this article, is taught by Northwest Family Services.

CCL teaches the Sympto-Thermal method. And actually they (the Kippleys of CCL) invented the Sympto-Thermal method through Dr. Konald Prem beginning in 1971.

The Creighton method is based on the Billings method (mucus only) and was developed in 1976. More distinctively the Creighton Method has been paired with NaPro Technology to assist people who have a hard time conceiving. The Pope Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction was built in 1985 as a direct response to the appeal by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, issued in July 1968.

But, most importantly, all the NFP methods feed off of each other, and work together. Their goal is to supply couples a means to chastely form a marital relationship that builds a family that the couple can raise properly through God's grace!